Task
of publishing for such a limited market is truly ' labor of love'

Ophthalmic Heritage

By
Norman B. Medow, MD,FACS

Over
the past few years, this column has reviewed some noteworthy contemporary
historical ophthalmic books. Publishing these books does not yield great
financial reward since the market for them is limited. The publishers who take
on these tasks do so primarily as a labor of love.

One
of these publishers is Jean Paul Wayenborgh, whose publications are
extremely well-done and whose love for ophthalmic history is evident in his
personal life story.

Born
in France and raised in Belgium, he learned the antiquarian book business in
Germany as a teen-ager. Early on, he discovered his love for ophthalmic books
and in 1961 he started his own antique business. He has never looked back.

In
the mid-1970s, he began publishing. He met and worked with most of the world's
best-known ophthalmic historians when he published the periodical Historia
Ophthalmologica Internationalis.

His
earliest published book, Atlas on the History of Spectacles, was a
three-volume masterpiece written by W. Poulet, which was published in his Bonn,
Germany location in 1978. Because of its popularity, the atlas was
translated into French, Spanish, Japanese, and English, achieving much success
in all of these languages.

Self made publisher

We
now know that W. Poulet was a pseudonym adopted by Wayenborgh. At the time he
had no authors to work with him, so he wrote, edited, and published this book
himself. In 1976, Wayenborgh met Dr. Fred Blodi and a mutually beneficial
relationship began, which would last for 20 years. Dr. Blodi and Wayenborgh
worked together on the translation of many classical books, including the
translation of Julius Hirschberg's monumental work, The History of
Ophthalmology, which ultimately will be 21 volumes when completed. Every
student of ophthalmic history deserves to have this series. Wayenborgh began
publishing a series of books under the heading, The Monographs, about 4 years
ago.

The
International Biography and Bibliography of Ophthalmologists (IBBO) will be
published soon*. Part I is scheduled to be released
shortly.